In the field of electrical terminals, one known method of connecting and terminating a wire lead arrangement involves the use of a conventional crimp-on terminal. A typical crimp-on terminal provides a crimping portion for receiving and crimping a wire lead and a terminal arrangement for terminating the wire lead to an electrical terminal, for example, of an electrical device. With crimp-on terminals, a wire lead arrangement is received and crimped within the crimping portion of the terminal. While in many uses the crimp-on terminal functions fairly well, it has certain disadvantages. The crimp-on terminal's electrical termination is not really reversible, and as such, crimp-on terminals are not reusable. Furthermore, the crimping action places a relatively large amount of stress on the wire leads and can cause the wire leads to break off. Breakage, in turn, may waste the terminal and leave the electrician without enough wire to make a proper electrical termination, requiring partial or complete rewiring.
When a crimp-on terminal is used, a special crimping tool is generally required, thus requiring the electrician to carry an extra tool. At times electrical terminations must be made in places that are very hard to reach with conventional electrician tools. Furthermore, if any rewiring is needed, the use of the convention crimp-on terminal can make such electrical terminations inconvenient to reverse.
The electrical terminal field clearly has demonstrated a need for, and the present invention provides, an electrical connector-terminal: that provides an electrical termination that is easier to reverse; that is reusable; that reduces the amount of stress on the wire leads, thus reducing the chance of breaking off the leads; that readily facilitates connection and termination of multiple wires to the electrical terminal; that does not require any special tools for making the electrical connection and termination; and that reduces the amount of labor and labor related expense required for making the initial electrical termination and for any rewiring that is needed.